


a fly in amber

by amuk



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/F, Fluff, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Immortality, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23936641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amuk/pseuds/amuk
Summary: Marceline wondered if she had somehow bound Bubblegum to her soul, tying her tight so that with every reincarnation, they found each other again.
Relationships: Princess Bubblegum/Marceline
Comments: 11
Kudos: 86





	a fly in amber

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sugar & Spice Bubbline Zine! I got assigned an AU, so I played around with reincarnation and immortality.

“I wonder if it’s something in your DNA,” Bonnie muttered, staring at a vial of brownish-green liquid. She gently shook it, swirling the contents, but the colour only got murkier and she put it into the rack with a sigh. Pulling off her glasses, she cleaned them with the edge of her shirt as she thought aloud. “Maybe I should take a blood sample? Or something deeper?”

“Ugh. Again?” Marceline scrunched up her nose, not looking forward to the next round of injections. Despite her age, she still hated the little pinpricks. Even if they had become less and less noticeable with each new technological development. She leaned against the wall in Bonnie’s bedroom, softly strumming a guitar as she watched her girlfriend pace back and forth on the rug. “You’re more of a vampire than I am.”

“But you’re not a vampire.” Bonnie chewed her lips thoughtfully. She brushed a bang behind her ear and Marceline ached at the familiarity of it all.

It was funny how little and how much a person could change through reincarnation. Bonnie had done this before, only she had been Rose then, disguising herself as a boy as she tried to get a job at a university lab. All of her incarnations looked the same, their images overlapping sometimes till Marceline wasn’t sure if she was looking at the present or the past.

Or maybe even the future—like a fly trapped in amber, Marceline was certain they were bound together now. Perhaps whatever kept her alive for so long had also tied Bonnie to her, a curse that lasted beyond lifetimes.

“No, just an immortal.” Marceline shrugged, looking at the posters of dead scientists and their creations on Bonnie’s walls. The periodic table took over the space above her workspace and this version of Bonnie was a bigger nerd than all the other ones combined. After a moment, Marceline leered at her girlfriend. “Though maybe I should take your blood so we’re square.”

Bonnie’s coloured slightly, her cheeks matching her dyed bright pink hair. No doubt she was remembering the hickey Marceline had given her last night. Her hand automatically covered her neck and she glared. “Marceline!”

“What?” Marceline blinked innocently, blowing away her bangs from her forehead. Even though she’d tied it back in a bun, stray hairs fell out of it here and there and she was due for hair cut. Maybe she’d trim it short this time. “Were you thinking about something you shouldn’t have?”

Snapping her pencil in two, Bonnie tried very hard not to growl. “No.” Taking a deep breath, she turned away and a ran a hand through her hair. “Anyways, I think it might be genetic thing instead of a disease or something that happened to you.”

“You thought that last time too,” Marceline commented, focusing on her fingers as she changed the tempo of the song. They’d had this conversation before too and just like the melody, the next words were almost muscle memory. “Though I’m kinda the only one like this, so you weren’t sure if it was hereditary or not. And the science wasn’t really—”

“Stop!” On cue, Bonnie quickly dashed toward her, pressing a finger against Marceline’s lips.

For a moment, Marceline stared at the finger, at a girl with waist-length brown hair and hoop-earrings. There was a smirk as Ruby pushed back a lock behind her ear, her eyes lowering as she leaned closer and this wasn’t the past, this was the present, and Marceline shook herself out of the memory before it threatened to drown her.

That was the problem with living so long. Everything had a memory associated with it. Frowning at the finger, she bit it and Bonnie recoiled with a grimace. Marceline cocked her head. “You do that every time too.”

“Maybe because I’m right every time?” Bonnie rolled her eyes, about to rub her finger on her pants before thinking better of it. Quickly, she grabbed a glass slide and swiped the saliva on it. “I don’t want to know what the other ‘me’ did. Any of them.”

“Why?” Marceline set down her guitar now. Getting up, she strolled over to the work desk, to Bonnie’s messily organized notes, tiny cramped writing filling in the margin of each sheet. “Blood, skin tests, health check-ups—you’ve done this before.”

“But science has changed since then,” she replied, hands on her hips. Her brow was furrowed and there was a cross tone in her voice. “And there could be a bias in their work.”

“Right.” Marceline’s brow rose. The results were the same either way.

“I’m still not convinced they’re ‘me’ anyways.” Bonnie snorted, crossing her arms. “Reincarnation doesn’t have any scientific grounding.”

“Hmmm, neither does immortality,” Marceline pointed out, rolling her eyes. To be honest, she didn’t think the answer was in science, her immortality a curse or a blessing. It had happened so long ago she couldn’t remember, at a time when gods walked the earth and she couldn’t recall if those stories were myth or reality.

“True. Fine. Fair point.” Bonnie sighed, conceding the argument. “Still, it’s more of a challenge this way.” Bonnie’s eyes sparkled and there, that was the truth of it. She had always been competitive. “ _I_ will figure it out.”

And the same words were uttered by Ruby and Bubbles and Rose and Momo and a centuries long list. If anything, the list would probably extend centuries forward, a stretch of _hellos_ and _goodbyes_ that would stop only when the world ended and maybe not even then. Could Marceline outlive a supernova? Would she hover in space, dying and living within seconds?

It was a question she didn’t want to know the answer to. Marceline sat back down, grabbing her guitar again as she shrugged. “If you say so.”

“I do,” Bonnie insisted, settling down beside Marceline. She leaned close, bumping their shoulders, and it’d be easy to kiss her.

Marceline didn’t think twice before closing the gap. Bonnie blinked before relaxing, pressing back fiercely. Always so competitive. Finally, they broke apart for air, and Marceline smiled cockily. “Break time?”

“Just taking a different tack.” Bonnie’s flushed skin was a delicious pink and Marceline leaned down to nibble on her neck, only for Bonnie to push her head away. “Later.”

“Later?” A little put out, Marceline shot her a grumpy look as she sat back.

“Don’t give me that, just wait a bit. I just have a question.” Bonnie rolled her eyes and let out an annoyed sigh. “Do you remember my first life? There might be a clue in there…”

Marceline shook her head, grabbing her guitar once more. “I can barely remember my early days, let alone yours. I don’t think I even knew you then.”

“Wait, what?” Bonnie whipped her head to the right, staring at her. “You didn’t know me?”

She snorted. “Princess, you aren’t the center of the world” When Bonnie bristled and looked ready to bite her head off, Marceline added, “I think I saw you once ore twice, but it’s…hazy.” Like looking in a fogged-up mirror or rippling water. Marceline’s memories of the past were distorted, and each year sent them further and further away.

Interested, Bonnie stroked her chin. “When’d we meet then?”

“I dunno.” Marceline shrugged. She played with her guitar’s tuning as she thought about it. It had been a long time since considered those early days. “Maybe a hundred, two hundred years after that? I think I saw you a few times before that but we never really talked till then.”

“Huh. Interesting.” Bonnie rested her head on Marceline’s shoulder. Stifling a yawn, she continued, “I thought that maybe we both did something together to end up like this, since you kept finding me over and over again.”

“Oh? Admitting you’re wrong about reincarnation?” Marceline teased lightly, her lips curving into a smirk.   
  


“Only if it’s tied to what happened to you but since it’s not…” From the tone in her voice, there was an irritated frown on her face. “But you don’t know anything about me, so either it’s unrelated or it’s just a coincidence.”

“And—”

“And I don’t think it’s a thing,” Bonnie interjected, each word slow and drawn out. “Maybe you’re imagining things.”

“Mmm…don’t think so.” Marceline chuckled. She softly strummed her guitar. “What else could it be?”

“There’s a chance that…” Before she could finish her sentence, her body leaned hard on Marceline.

“Bonnie?” Marceline turned her head the best she could, trying not to knock her head against Bonnie’s. “You ok?”

The only response was slow, even breathing and a soft snore. Fast asleep. Not surprising, considering the all-nighters Bonnie liked to pull when she was researching something interesting. She even forgot to eat sometimes and maybe Marceline should force a few more breaks. Trying not to laugh, she curled her hand around Bonnie’s and gazed out the open window.

This felt familiar, like a memory over two centuries ago in Japan, when Bonnie was Momo and Marceline had tried her hand at adventuring. Tuberculosis had weakened Momo in that lifetime, leaving her a shell of herself, her hand as frail as a bird’s bones. That lifetime had been a short one and she had breathed her last like this, their hands intertwined.

_I’ll see you soon,_ Momo had promised, despite her constant rejection of reincarnation. There had been the faintest of smiles on her lips. _I know you’ll find me._

And she had, as Ruby and Rose and Bonnie and sometimes Marceline wondered if whatever she had was infectious, if it had intertwined in Bonnie’s soul so tightly that she would never be free. Perhaps they would always be like this, losing and finding one another.

That was fine. She tightened her grip and rested her head on Bonnie’s. Part of her hoped that Bonnie would never figure out her immortality, that they would always be drawn to each other like this like a moth to the flame.

_I’ll see you soon._

The words were a promise and a curse and the truth. It was easier to say goodbye when she knew that in a few decades, she’d say hello again.

Marceline had always thought that Bonnie was the fly trapped in amber but maybe it was her all along.


End file.
